The Complicated Relationship Between Cruise Ships and the Arctic Inuit

The presence of cruise ships in the Northwest Passage is among the dilemmas that climate change is creating for Canada’s Inuit people amid their struggle to balance environmental and economic concerns.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KIKE CALVO / REDUX

Last summer, the Crystal Serenity, a luxury cruise ship, embarked on a monthlong voyage through the Northwest Passage, the sea route that winds through Canada’s Arctic archipelago. The Serenity, which can accommodate more than a thousand passengers, headed through the same waters as had H.M.S. Resolute, which, in August of 1853, set out to rescue a group of British explorers and ended up trapped in the ice for the better part of a year. The Arctic Ocean is warmer than it was a hundred and sixty-three years ago, and the Crystal Serenity, accompanied by a British icebreaking vessel, made the voyage without dire incident. It is the largest cruise ship to sail through the Northwest Passage, and its voyage signalled the economic changes that are coming to the vast region as a result, in part, of climate change.

The ship, which set out from Seward, Alaska, travelled nearly a thousand miles along the Alaskan and Canadian coasts toward Nunavut, Canada’s largest and newest territory, founded in 1999 as part of a sweeping agreement with the aboriginal Inuit who have lived on the tundra for millennia. One of the ship’s last shore visits before crossing the Davis Strait to Greenland was at Pond Inlet, which sits on the northern tip of Baffin Island. The area abounds with polar bears, harp and ringed seals, millions of birds, narwhal, beluga, and bowhead whales. Nearby are glaciers, mountains, ice caves, and drifting pack ice. Abraham Kublu, a member of the Pond Inlet council, said that the cruise passengers were excited to be there, especially because their visit coincided with the first snow. “People were amazed by that,” Kublu said. It was early September.

I spoke to Kublu in March, when he and representatives from some of Nunavut’s twenty-five communities had gathered in Iqaluit, Nunavut’s capital, to discuss the first-ever land-use plan for the territory. Drafted by the government-funded Nunavut Planning Commission, the plan is nearing completion after having been in negotiation for more than twelve years. The goal is to find a broadly acceptable compromise between protecting Nunavut’s pristine land and water, and allowing tourism, mining, and other types of development. (Today, the U.S. Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, will visit Alaska to meet with other nations that are part of the Arctic Council, which focusses on Arctic issues and aboriginal people like the Inuit. The nations’ statements on climate change are expected to be a point of contention.)

Two more land-use meetings will be held later in the year, but at a hearing that took place at the Frobisher Inn before the Nunavut Planning Commission, Nunavut residents spoke overwhelmingly in favor of protecting their land and water rather than for development. Nunavut’s thirty-seven thousand residents are spread over 808,185 square miles, and representatives from thirteen communities talked about the importance of caribou calving grounds, walrus and seal nurseries, as well as bird sanctuaries and polynyas—open water within an ice pack, where seals and whales often concentrate.

The speakers weren’t opposed to development, but they saw the encroachment of the cruise-ship industry as a particularly frustrating point of tension. “The cruise ships are disturbing many wildlife as they travel,” Kublu, the Pond Inlet councillor, told the commission. “We have stressed that cruise ships be restricted, but there is no response from anybody. They come and go as they please. This is regrettable and unfortunate. We have no voice.”

Joshua Kango, a resident of Iqaluit, complained about the effects that cruise ships and their many passengers have on wildlife. “These people go on shore and disturbing with their Zodiac boats”—small inflatable craft. “They disturb whales, and this category is the worst offenders, ships carrying tourist travellers. Whoever issued these licenses are not thinking of the Inuit.” Another attendee told the commission that when ships approach colonies of nesting birds on the cliffs, the birds fly away and drop their eggs. Others argued that protecting Nunavut’s land would preserve Inuit lifestyle and culture. As another of Pond Inlet’s representatives, Elijah Panipakootcho, put it, “We are eaters of mammals from the sea.”

The draft land-use plan proposes buffer zones and other types of restrictions for marine traffic around important habitats. But the Nunavut Planning Commission and the people of Nunavut may not have the final say. Canada claims the Northwest Passage as its own internal waters because it winds through the islands and fjords of Nunavut, but other countries, including the United States, say that it is international waters. Recently, the Chinese government issued a marine shipping guide for vessels carrying the Chinese flag, specifically focussing on transit through the Northwest Passage.

Even within Canada, there is confusion over who is in charge of Nunavut’s waterways. Brian Aglukark, the Nunavut Planning Commission’s director of policy and planning, said the commission was told that land-use planning can and should apply to marine areas. However, it has also been told that, when it comes to the sea, “the government of Canada has almost sole jurisdiction in this area.”

For generations, the uncertain legal status of the Northwest Passage—both in international maritime law and within Canada—had little practical impact. As the fate of H.M.S. Resolute demonstrated, it was too ice-choked, even in late summer, to be navigable. But with climate change, this is no longer the case. As the ice recedes, the number of ships on the water has increased. In 2016, the Canadian Coast Guard counted forty-seven ships making a full or partial transit of the Northwest Passage. That number set a record, one that is likely to be continually broken. While the meeting in Iqaluit was taking place, the National Snow and Ice Data Center, in Boulder, Colorado, announced that the maximum extent of the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice had dropped to its lowest level ever, and that it was thinner than normal.

The lives of Nunavut residents, however, have been changing for a long time. Mining companies are active in the territory and pay royalties that fill the coffers of the territorial and federal governments, as well as Inuit organizations. These industries, too, are eager to influence the land-use plan to allow for more activity. Residents of Pond Inlet use snowmobiles in the winter, as well as all-terrain vehicles and motorboats in the summer, to hunt and get around. The use of dog sleds died out in the late nineteen-sixties. Pregnant women in Pond Inlet are flown from remote communities to Iqaluit to give birth. (Near the end of his term, President Barack Obama invoked a 1953 law that would prevent new offshore drilling in the Arctic. Last month, President Trump instructed Cabinet officials to review Obama’s order, with an eye toward overturning it.)

At the Nunavut Planning Commission’s meeting, Abraham Kublu, the Pond Inlet councillor, gave an eloquent speech about his community’s desire to protect its lands, and the anxiety regarding the increase in cruise ships and other marine traffic. This was surprising to me, because a day earlier, when Kublu and I had met at the Frobisher Inn’s coffee shop, his tone was different. I asked about the visit of the Crystal Serenity, and he said it had gone well. The only complaint he had heard from Pond Inlet residents was that the ship stopped in their town toward the end of its cruise, when many passengers had already bought souvenirs. He told me that he wasn’t in Pond Inlet when the cruise-ship passengers disembarked because he was working on another cruise ship, run by Silversea, as a bear monitor to insure the safety of the tourists. Silversea operates small, ultra-luxury cruises throughout the world, including in the Northwest Passage.

After the hearing, I asked Kublu about the discrepancy between his angry words about cruise ships at the planning commission and his employment by those same ships. Kublu said that he’d made his comments to the planning commission on behalf of his whole community, and that, in any case, his main complaint was with smaller, private ships like yachts and sailboats. These were the ones that caused the most disturbance, he said. The Silversea and Crystal Serenity cruises went smoothly because they worked with his community and responded to their concerns regarding wildlife.

About forty per cent of Nunavut’s residents are on public assistance, and Kublu mused about the problem of choosing between protection and development. Not far from Pond Inlet, the mining company Baffinland, which is partially owned by the steel producer ArcelorMittal, mines iron ore. “If I was to eliminate tourism and industry, the hunting would be increasing,” he told me. “Either my hunting ground or the community’s economy—it is very difficult to decide.”

Crystal Serenity will return to the Northwest Passage this August. Crystal Cruises promises that those who sign up as passengers will follow “in the footsteps of intrepid explorers as you sail through unparalleled landscapes of grand glaciers, stunning fjords, and rare wildlife sightings.” The 68,870-ton ship will make another stop at Pond Inlet. Some residents will be glad to be paid to participate in Inuit cultural demonstrations, and will sell traditional Inuit handicrafts. Some will resent the ship’s arrival as a threat to their way of life. And some might feel both at the same time.

Peter Kujawinski is a former American diplomat, serving, most recently, as the U.S. consul-general in western Canada. He is also the author, with Jake Halpern, of “Edgeland.”